The Death of an Irish Sea Wolf

by Bartholomew Gill

  Again she listened. “What do you mean, what do I want? Do I have to want something? I was just checkin’ in—one gumshoe to another—to find out if you’ve grown feathers yet and can fly without flappin’ your wings. Know what Hughie and I have been given?”

  Bresnahan waited, but there was only silence on the other end of the line. Usually McKeon would have a rapier-like comeback. “The bleedin’ hotel is what, and I hate to say—since we’re working and all—but it’s party time.”

  Still she waited. Finally she decided to come out with it. “Want to make a swap?”

  The others in the room watched as Bresnahan’s eyes widened. “Of course Peter is here. He’s in the bar.” There was a pause. “I am in the bar. Like I said, it’s packed, and—” Bresnahan lowered the receiver and stared down at it.

  McKeon had rung off. After all, his specialty was interrogations.

  Behind the door to the other room, the barman from McCabe’s could be heard saying, “I dunno. It’s hard to say. Wasn’t the bar dark and him in the orange deck suit and all. Looked like a navvy off one of them Spanish factory ships. Beard. I don’t think he’d shaved in a week.”

  Said one of the patrons from that night, “He kept a billed cap on, like the kids wear these days.”

  McGarr clicked the screen back four faces. “Like that?”

  He nodded.

  “Baseball.”

  All three men stared at him, none probably knowing a baseball from a softball. The transom of the Mah Jong said she was from New Orleans, Louisiana. No such boat was documented or licensed in Louisiana; of the seventeen boats named Mah Jong worldwide, none was a schooner. McGarr had pulled out every stop he could think of, but he was worried that time was running out. In a matter of hours the island would be teeming with more people than could be monitored or tracked, and he would have to take steps to protect Mirna Gottschalk and her son, Karl, who was still staying with her.

  If only he knew more about the raiders, then perhaps they might narrow the focus. Hating the thought of diminishing his numbers on Clare Island even by one, McGarr decided nevertheless to send Ward back to Dublin. He was young enough to know computers, E-mail, and so forth that were necessary to extract information from other sources worldwide, and yet he was veteran enough to have more usual connections.

  “And another thing,” said the barman. “He kept his hand up to his face, like leaning on an elbow.”

  “The bigger problem is the pictures, if I can say so, Superintendent—”

  “You can say anything you want.”

  “—them photos there, they’re in color. But bars, now, bars is different. Bars is in black and white, like. In bars yeh don’t think this color, that color—hat, coat, shoes. In bars, everything is…gray, since ye’ve got yehr pint and chat to take care of.”

  McGarr could credit the notion, especially round closing time which it had been.

  “And there’s only so much starin’ you want to do at a stranger, never knowin’ where they’re from or what they might do,” put in the barman.

  “There’s nary a word of lie in that.”

  Amen, thought McGarr. He began clicking through the women on the off chance they might have seen any of them before. There was the evidence of the small man or large woman’s footprint in the soft ground around the Ford cottage. To say nothing of Paul O’Malley’s sighting through his Swarovski scope.

  Out in the other room, the phone rang. Bresnahan snatched it up, hoping that McKeon had changed his mind. But a decidedly feminine voice said, “May I speak to Garda Superintendent Hugh Ward of the Serious Crimes Unit, please.”

  It took Bresnahan only a heartbeat—literally—to know who it was. The admiring tone was unmistakable, along with the distinctive Dublin brogue. “One moment. Please hold.” She cupped the phone to a hip, saying to Ward, “It’s for you. I think it might be personal.”

  Ward frowned; he’d had no personal life since becoming involved with herself. “Who is it?”

  Bresnahan arched an auburn eyebrow and shook her head. “I have an idea it’s an admirer.”

  Noreen was all ears, wondering if she was about to be party to some revelation of Ward’s infidelity. It was rather expected, given his past and storied romantic history.

  “Ward here.”

  “Hughie—it’s Leah Sigal from Sigal and Sons.”

  “Yes, Leah.”

  Bresnahan nodded, having been right; but she did not move away from the phone. As it was, they were practically shoulder to shoulder, she being the taller party. Ward—dressed in a blue buttoned-down, Oxford-cloth shirt, blue jeans, and penny loafers—looked like one of the younger American O’Malley revelers, and certainly nowhere near his thirty-six years.

  “I phoned your office, and yehr mahn, Swords, put me through.” It was said in the best Dublin voice. “I have a confirmation on the ring.”

  Ward’s head went back.

  “It is—as I thought—part of a parure. In fact, it’s part of a famous set of diamonds and sapphires that had been given by the enormously wealthy Count Cyril Kraczkiewicz to his betrothed—I’m reading from the report I requested—on the occasion of their marriage in Gdask in 1934. Kraczkiewicz, a noted collector of gemstones and jewelry, disappeared in East Prussia with his wife in late 1944, and were never seen or heard from again, victims—it is supposed—of either the Nazis or the advancing Russians.

  “The value of the ring? I should think my estimate was low both as a single piece or as part of the parure. My fax hasn’t had a moment’s rest since I sent out the request. I’m being besieged with offers to buy. The service must have a leak.”

  Free enterprise being even freer on an anonymous fax line, thought Ward.

  “Hughie”—there was a huffy pause, as though the woman was summoning the courage to continue—“it was good to see you again, and I hope what I found out has helped. My son, Lou? He’s going through his grandfather’s records of any Clare Island or Clement Ford dealings.

  “But, well—what I want to say to explain why I acted so odd when you called at the shop is…” She paused to gather breath. “It was because…well, because I was dismayed that you didn’t recognize me. Have I changed that much? Hughie, are you there?”

  Ward grunted and tried to turn himself and the phone away from Bresnahan, sensing that more was coming.

  “Hughie—I’m Lee Stone, your history reader the year you were at University College.”

  In a stunning flashback that, he knew, was revealed on his face, it all came back to Ward.

  “What’s wrong?” Bresnahan asked.

  During that spring—how many? Fourteen years ago—Lee Stone and he had had a torrid affair. Only a few years older than he at the time, she had been a research student who assisted the professor who lectured the course. Although she had been married at the time, it had been like love at first sight. Her office, her car, his flat, Phoenix Park—they had been unable to keep themselves apart. Ward had even grown anxious that he was not devoting enough time to his studies and might fail his exams.

  But then his father had died, and he had gone home to Waterford to bury him. After that, she had come down once to visit him and tell him that she was going to divorce her husband, whose name was Stone. Ward had either never asked her maiden name or, if he had, he had forgotten it. As he had her until now.

  And then it occurred to him that her son was just about fourteen…. Ward drew in an anxious breath of his own. “What about your son?” His dark brow knitted. “Lou.”

  “He doesn’t know, I didn’t tell him. As far as he’s concerned, my ex-husband is his father, though he’s never seen the man. He emigrated to Israel before Lou was born. I’ve encouraged him to know something about you without letting on, though there was oft and many a time I thought I should. But divil the bit of courage could I muster to pick up the phone and disturb your life because of a decision I had made so many years ago.”

  But now the boy should be told, Ward decided without hav
ing to debate the issue, at the same time wondering if there were any possibility that the child was not his. No—he shook his head—he had met the boy, seen the similarity in their dark looks. There was no possibility that he wasn’t.

  “I know it’s a great weight to drop on you after all this time, and I haven’t had a moment’s rest since you came into the shop, hammerin’ my head off the wall whether I should tell you. But I decided God had put you in the way of us again, just at the age when a boy needs some male guidance.

  “But I’ll leave it up to you if you want to see him or let him know. As I said, I never wished to intrude on your life, which is the reason I didn’t tell you earlier, and we can continue on like that, if you wish. He’s got his uncles and cousins, whom he sees. Also, please don’t think this is the beginning of any attempt to bind you to us or to secure monetary help. His grandfather took care of that for Lou, and fortunately the business is good. Too good. I scarcely have time to care for myself, as perhaps you noticed.”

  There was nothing to say to that either.

  “Hughie—are you there?”

  At the continued silence she rushed back into speech. “Sure, it must be a devastating lot to take in all at one go. But I’ll leave it up to you. Do you have our number?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good-bye, Hughie.”

  “Good-bye, Lee.”

  She rang off, and Ward lowered the receiver into its yoke. Looking up, he found three pairs of eyes on him; from the other room he could hear McGarr’s voice saying, “What about this bloke? He’s about the right age, and he looks stocky, like you said.”

  “I’ve got a son,” Ward announced.

  “The kid from the jewelry shop? Sigal and Son?” Bresnahan asked.

  “You’re not in earnest surely!” Noreen said. Dubliner to the core, being privy to a breaking story of such import concerning two people who were not only known to her, but who were also particular friends and prominent in their specialties was meat and drink to her. No, three people, since Ruth was unquestionably involved. “Leah Sigal’s son? You have a child by my Leah Sigal?”

  Ward only looked at her; it was as though she were speaking Swahili. He could hear the words, but he still could not comprehend the meaning. He did not know how or in what way his life had been changed, but it had.

  “I think it’s absolute magic! Leah is one of the best people I know. I often wondered how the boy ended up with such a downright Celtic name. It’s spelled ell, you, gee, haitch, you know. Lugh.” Noreen enthused before remembering Ruth. “I mean, when and where did you know her?”

  “In the biblical sense,” Bresnahan put in acidly. “There’s no other knowledge for some patriarchs.”

  Said Maddie, “But Hughie isn’t married, Ma. How can he have a son?”

  “You certainly spread yourself thin.” Bresnahan eased herself into a chair.

  “More than a decade before I knew you,” Ward managed, moving woodenly toward the sideboard. But he had lost his appetite, as well as his idea of himself as being essentially a free spirit. What was that statement by one of the German writers? When your child is born, it is you who is the dead one. Or, at least, it is your freedom that dies. Ward could not piece it out completely; it was too early.

  Also, a child was such a responsibility; there were so many pitfalls and traps out there, as Ward knew from his own experience. But he also felt a profound pity and sorrow for the boy—his boy—who had not known his own father for fourteen years.

  As surely, Lee—or Leah—had taken a chance. He wondered if the boy would ever forgive her for keeping them apart for so long.

  “Hughie—please don’t keep us waiting. Give us the details.” Noreen was beside herself to learn when and where. In her own cosmogony, the two were worlds apart—a Ph.D. historian with a refined taste in jewelry and objets d’art, and Ward, who was without a doubt the second toughest man (in the best sense) that she knew. Her own being the first. “You had an affair—when?”

  But Ward said nothing.

  “He can’t remember, there’s been so many. Also, he’s your archetypal ‘gentleman.’ You know, the one that kisses but never tells. Can you imagine he once said that to me?”

  “But have you ever seen the lad? Now that I think of it, he’s the—” Noreen caught herself.

  “If you say spit and image I’ll never speak to you again, so help me,” said Bresnahan.

  “Well”—Noreen looked away, not wishing to wrangle—“the resemblance is certainly remarkable. But then Leah is dark too.”

  There was a long pause, during which they listened to McGarr’s continuing questions in the next room, mingled with shouts, laughter, and revelry both in the hotel proper and down in the lane below the windows. The O’Malleys were in party form.

  Finally Bresnahan said, “Cripes—how do I compete with the woman?” She held up three fingers. “She’s wealthy, I assume?”

  Noreen shook her head. “I have no idea, but I assume—”

  Bresnahan did as well. “Bags of money. Two, she’s produced a veritable clone of the man and weathered fourteen years as a lone parent without a complaint that he ever heard. And three—she still worships the very ground he trods. You should have heard her there in the shop, falling all over herself with flattering questions—the boxing, the cops. If himself and I had a child, we’d toss up a mutt, half dark, half red.”

  Noreen raised a hand to stop her. Some things said, even half in jest, could never be taken back. And it wasn’t as if Ruth and she were having a private chat, woman to woman. There he sat, the impregnator himself, right across from them.

  “And have you ever seen her?”

  Weekly at least, thought Noreen. Not only did they own complementary businesses, they were friends. They checked in on the phone, went places together, even met for a drink and gossip at least once a fortnight. Suddenly Noreen realized why Leah had always seemed so interested in the Squad with clever questions tactfully put to elicit information about Ward. But their friendship had not been based on that alone. No. Noreen could remember scads of other occasions—at auctions, sales, and estate closings—when they spoke only about the matters at hand and had lunch and a laugh afterward. Ward could do worse than either woman. What a delicious dilemma.

  “I asked you, have you ever seen her?”

  Uh-oh, somebody big and dangerous was waxing wroth. Noreen nodded. Now, if she were to retain Ruth’s friendship, she knew she could utter only the truth; anything less would be transparent. “I’d say there was a time that she was nicely put together.”

  “Yah—like now. I can only imagine what she was like before.”

  Well, one thing for Hughie, Noreen thought—he always had great good taste in women. But fortunately, all that came out of Noreen’s mouth was “I’ve seen her at charity affairs and so forth looking ravishing. But always alone. During the week, it’s as if she doesn’t try.”

  “And talk about one love.”

  Noreen was happy Ruth had said it, because the thought had occurred to her too.

  Ruth stood and moved to the sideboard and Ward’s brimming plate. She carried it over to him. “Looks like you’ve got your plate filled, me mahn.” Ward only set it aside.

  The door opened, and McGarr entered the room. “What’s this—a séance? There’s a boat anchoring in the harbor.” He pointed out the window. “Rice might be there, but we need somebody with a camera.” He glanced at his watch. “And the ferry’s due any minute.”

  “Oh, Daddy—do we have to?” Maddie complained. “I want to go swimming with the other kids.”

  McGarr reached for his daughter, who was his love and life, and hoisted her into the air. “And swimming you will. Humpty and Dumpty over here will pick up our slack, being paid for it,” as Noreen and Maddie were not. It was then that he noticed Ward. “What’s with you?”

  “He’s just been told he’s a daddy,” said Bresnahan.

  “No—” It was out of McGarr’s mouth before he could tak
e it back, but, he supposed, it was inevitable.

  “Congratulations” was his second thought. “When can we expect the addition?”

  “Ah, yehr late,” Bresnahan replied disgustedly. “Fourteen years, in fact.”

  McGarr looked to Noreen for an explanation, but she averted her eyes.

  “I’m sure he’ll fill you in, man to man.”

  “Later then. Right now, Hughie, I want you to get back to Dublin and see what you can do with the Clare Island Trust, the possibility of some Republican connection, and the lists we put together of the people who came to the island today. Once you get in place, we’ll send you tomorrow’s additions, and so forth. Can you leave immediately?”

  Ward stood. “If I can get off the island.”

  “Rice will arrange that.”

  McGarr turned to Bresnahan. “Something wrong, Rut’ie?”

  “Ah no, not a thing. I was just thinking how convenient it is, lashing back to Dublin and the ready-made family. Is it a setup? Did you two choreograph the entire blessed revelation?”

  McGarr was at a loss, but when no explanation was offered, he simply walked back into the other room and closed the door.

  Thought Noreen: given the country’s approach to contraception and abortion, Irish women with unwanted pregnancies had typically gone to England to give birth and had then given their babies up for adoption. Years later, those same children—wishing to know their birth mothers—had successfully met the other and then carried on with their lives.

  Here the shoe was on the other hoof. Albeit cloven.

  CHAPTER 23

  BERNIE MCKEON’S BRIEF touch with serenity was over, he could tell. With a resentment bordering on anger he watched the bikers, hikers, trekkers, and even joggers heave into view from the south of the island, singly and in clutches—in one case of nineteen. They were on the roads, in the treeless meadows and bogs, even now climbing the steep gray-green flanks of Croaghmore. The O’Malleys had obviously arrived.